Questions to consider

• What are the key differences between batch and interactive scheduling algorithms?
• How does Round Robin improve response time compared to SJF, and what tradeoff does it introduce?
• Why might a system benefit from using multiple scheduling queues rather than a single algorithm?

Batch vs. interactive scheduling

What about response time?

Interactive algorithm: Round Robin (RR)

• FCFS with preemption
• Based on a time quantum (time slice)
  • Typically 10-100 milliseconds
  • How do we pick a quantum?
    • Very short: a lot of context switching (need a large quantum, otherwise overhead is too much to be worth it)
    • Very long -> becomes FCFS: long wait times, long turnaround times
  • Circular queue
    • New processes are added to the tail
    • If a process doesn’t complete during its quantum, context switch and added to the tail

RR example

Process Burst Time
  P1        24
  P2        3
  P3        3   

  Quantum = 4

Gaming RR

• How could a programmer “cheat” RR?
  • Spin up many processes (split tasks up and fork children)
  • Job A: 9 processes
  • Job B: 1 process
  • A gets 90% of the CPU in RR
• This actually happens in many systems that aim for rudimentary fairness

FCFS, SJF, SRTF, RR

• All have downsides

• Those that optimize turnaround / wait, can harm response time

• Those that optimize response time, can harm turnaround, wait

• What should we do?

Interactive algorithms: Multi-Level Queue (MLQ)

• We have classes of process, with different needs. Why not multiple schedulers satisfying those needs?
• Multilevel queue scheduler defined by the following parameters:
  • # of queues
  • Scheduling algorithms for each queue
  • Method used to determine which queue a process will enter when that process needs service
  • Scheduling among the queues

MLQ

Interactive algorithms: Multi-Level Feedback Queue (MLFQ)

• A process can move between the various queues
• Metrics for movement:
  • Process requirements (we serve fast processes quickly)
  • Over consumption
  • Change in priority
  • Age

MLFQ rules

• Rule 1: If Priority(A) > Priority(B), A runs (B doesn’t)

• Rule 2: If Priority(A)=Priority(B), A & B run in RR

• Rule 3: When a job enters the system, it is placed at the highest priority (the topmost queue)

• Rule 4a: If a job uses up its allotment while running, its priority is reduced (i.e., it moves down one queue)

• Rule 4b: If a job gives up the CPU (for example, by performing an I/O operation) before the allotment is up, it stays at the same priority level (i.e., its allotment is reset)

• Any problems with these???

MLFQ example: one process

MLFQ example: two processes

MLFQ example: two processes

MLFQ example: two processes

MLFQ: solving gaming

MLFQ: solving starvation

What scheduler should we use?

• Ticket booking system
  • FCFS: fairness
• Print server
  • SJF could make sense
• Web server
  • RR: fairness
• Streaming service
  • SRTF: need to quickly respond to something going wrong e.g., buffering
• General operating systems
  • MLFQ: need to handle a mix

Questions to consider

• What are the differences between processes and threads?
• When are threads beneficial?
• How are threads limited by Amdahl’s Law?

Motivation: context switching is expensive

• consider the modern word processor, which concurrently:
  • accepts user input,
  • performs auto-correct/spell checking;
  • auto-detects formatting
  • auto-save (nothing could be entered until save was complete);
• All impossible (or at least very inconvenient) without threads.

Processes vs threads

• Potentially confusing due to overlapping terminology: we can describe both a process and a thread as running
• Terminology can be helpful for remembering the distinction:
  • A computing process requires multiple resources: the CPU, memory, files, etc.
  • A thread of execution abstracts CPU state

Processes vs threads (cont’d)

• Processes contain threads; threads belong to a process
  • Only one exception: the kernel may have threads of execution not associated with any user process
• Threads each have their own stack and registers
  • Share code, data, files held by the process
• A process is considered to be running when one or more of its threads are running
• Different operating systems use different terminology, but share common ideas

Intra-process communication

• Communication between multiple threads in a process is usually accomplished using shared memory (since they naturally share it)
  • Potential issues?
    • Synchronization (we’ll come back to this)
• Threads within a process also share open file handles and both static and dynamically-allocated global variables.
• Thread stacks and thus thread local variables are typically private.

Why do we use threads? Pros

• To support multiple activities within a single process
• Responsiveness: a process may continue to run, even if part of it is blocked (depends on thread implementation)
• Resource sharing: Process are isolated so can only communicate with help from the kernel; threads share a memory space and a process’s resources (e.g. files)
• Economy: Allocating resources for multiple processes is costly, because it involves the kernel. Threads can be handled entirely in user space and are much faster to allocate and destroy. Allows for pop-up threads, dynamically created threads to support load
• Hardware support: modern CPUs support multithreading (hyperthreading), where threads can run in parallel

Thread cons

• This is hard. Burdens programmer needs to solve:
  • Dividing activities
  • Balance
  • Data splitting
  • Data dependency
  • Testing and debugging
• Share the same address space and global variable: loss of isolation. A runaway thread can wipe out other threads
• No built-in mechanism for pre-emption, so threads should be well-behaved (unlike greedy processes)
• n threads see 1/n of a single CPU; CPU-bound processes make thread moot, or detrimental

What makes more sense, threads or process?

• Web browser
• Web server
• GUI apps
• Multimedia apps
• DB servers
• OS services

What makes more sense, threads or process?

• Web browser - process
• Web server - thread
• GUI apps - thread
• Multimedia apps - thread
• DB servers - process
• OS services - process

Side note: fork() and threading

• What happens to threads when you fork()?
• Should a child inherit the threads of their parent?
• What happens if two threads are competing for the same resource? E.g., who gets the input from a keyboard or established network connection?
• What happens if a thread closes a file another expects to be open?
• In reality (Linux): a child process, only the calling thread is replicated.

A word of caution: Amdahl’s Law

• Threads are awesome, let’s parallelize everything, right?
• Amdahl’s Law identifies performance gains from adding additional cores to an application that has both serial and parallel components
  • \(S\) is serial portion
  • \(N\) processing cores \[speedup \le \frac{1}{S + \frac{(1-S)}{N}}\]
• That is, if application is 75% parallel / 25% serial, moving from 1 to 2 cores results in speedup of \(1.6 \times\)
• As \(N\) approaches infinity, speedup approaches \(1 / S\)
• Example: \(S = 50%\). You are capped at \(2 \times\) speedup
• Serial portion of an application has disproportionate effect on performance gained by adding additional cores

Questions to consider

• What is the difference between user threads and kernel threads
• What are the different kernel thread models and how do they compare?

First things first

• A kernel thread is the unit of execution that the OS can run on a CPU core
• A process can only make progress if at least one of its kernel threads is scheduled on a core
• CPUs run kernel threads, not processes

POSIX threads (pthreads)

• 60 calls, but the important ones are: pthread*
  • create, exit, yield, join (Look familiar?)
• Pthreads can be used as a user space library: all functionality happens in user space, and the kernel knows nothing about them
  • can run on kernels or CPUs with no thread support
  • orders of magnitude faster than a kernel trap (everything is a local function call)
  • custom schedulers

Pure user space threads

• Totally unknown to the OS
• User-level threads must “borrow” a kernel thread to run
• What happens when a thread makes an I/O-bound system call?
  • All threads will block, because the process is blocked
  • Sometimes a thread blocking a process is unavoidable: page fault: more later
• Where we typically want threads is where there is a lot of I/O blocking or system calls: the web server example
  • if we’re trapping to the kernel, are we really gaining anything?

Kernel threads

• Thread libraries can also have kernel support (most modern OSes support kernel threads)
• There is no user space runtime environment or thread table: all is managed within the kernel
• Support for multiple cores
• All thread interfaces are system calls handled by the kernel

Kernel threads (cont’d)

• Instead of blocking on a system call, the kernel now has the intelligence to schedule another thread
• Creating and destroying threads comes at a higher cost (the kernel trap we were trying to avoid above)
  • What should we do?
    • Thread pools: a collection of pre-allocated threads, assigned as needed

Thread design models: many-to-one (N:1)

• Kernel threads must support user level threads. There are multiple ways to pull this off
• Many-to-one (green threads)
  • A single kernel level thread supports many user level threads
  • Switching between threads is fast (done in user level)
  • No parallelism (kernel thread is supporting only a single user thread at a time)
  • If any user thread makes an I/O blocking call, all user threads in that process are blocked

Thread models: many-to-many (M:N)

• Set of user threads supported by <= number of kernel
• User thread isn’t bound to a particular kernel thread
  • If kernel thread has to block and was supporting 3 user threads, the others can migrate
• Allows parallelism
• Programmer has more control (scheduling in user space)
• Sounds like the best of all worlds, right?
  • Can be hard to implement without decent language support
    • goroutines are a notable example of M:M in reality (though they are achieved through the Go runtime and not the kernel itself)

Thread models: one-to-one (1:1)

• Number of kernel-level threads is equal to the number of user-level threads
• Can operate in parallel
• If one blocks, others can continue
• Downsides?
  • Lose the advantage of fast switching between user threads
  • Any new user thread requires kernel thread creation: expensive
  • Programmer loses scheduling control: kernel makes decisions
• Very popular model: Linux & Windows
  • Easy to implement
  • Most machines have multiple cores so we can support a lot of kernel threads

Which models make sense?

• Distributed scientific computing
• Embedded system
• NGINX web servers

Which models make sense?

• Distributed scientific computing
  • 1:1 - In scientific computing, you want predictable, full-speed access to hardware, not an extra runtime scheduler in the way
• Embedded system
  • N:1 - In embedded systems, simplicity and determinism matter more than scalability. You may only have a single core
• NGINX web servers
  • M:N - NGINX multiplexes connections (user-level work) onto a small number of kernel threads